In the early hours of Thanksgiving Day in 2010, all the music at OnSmash.com, a popular hip-hop blog, disappeared. In place of its usual feed of videos, song links and industry gossip, the site displayed a seizure notice from the federal government, a result of a raid of dozens of websites suspected of trafficking in counterfeit goods and pirated content.

The site stayed that way for nearly five years. But a few weeks ago, after lobbying the government for its return and paying a $7 fee, Kevin Hofman — a rank-and-file record label employee who ran OnSmash, first as a hobby and later as a full-time job — finally got it back, with little explanation and without ever being formally charged with any wrongdoing.

I suspect this chap didn't have the money the other sites did so the federal govt dragged this out till the last moment to save face, however stealing a domain and holding it ransom for 5 years is no different to an extortion racket, the idea is the poor site owner has to jump through hoops or falsely admit wrong doing so the FBI can use it as a poster board event, when the victim of this RIAA co-sponsored activity refuses to tell lies they either have to waste a lot of money on legal battles or as this guy did wait patiently while the sites userbase is decimated and that my friends is a great poster board for govt extortionists, those with enough money can of course sue but the FBI is pretty choosy about whom it makes false claims against, the more defenceless the victim the more likely their legal muscle will be employed, we can see why it took so long to catch up with Osama eh folks.